


the nightmare is all that is left

by spheeris1



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, depressive downward spiral in rehab stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 10:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1601459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spheeris1/pseuds/spheeris1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alison POV :: drabble-ish :: Season 2 :: "Dreams take on a funny, wicked kind-of shape once a person is fully sober."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the nightmare is all that is left

/ /

Dreams take on a funny, wicked kind-of shape once a person is fully sober.

And that fact alone is reason enough to keep drinking – the slide of something hot and safe down her throat would erase the images – but there are only cups of lukewarm water in this place, flat soda if your stomach can manage it, and neither of those things can keep the nightmares at bay.

Especially not when the nightmare is yourself.

/ /

She reads months-old magazines and she taps out a frantic rhythm against her thigh. She talks about her life, made-up stories with touches of reality, and the counselor nods her head while the rest of the washed-out faces look bored. She stares at Felix with longing, desperate for a second of control while the world unravels beneath her feet.

Alison looks at herself in the mirror – skin devoid of make up, navy blue sling against her body, lips no longer firm but slightly parted in abject wonder... as if constantly asking a question that comes with no answer...

_Who am I anymore?_

/ /

The first one is about Donnie.

Laughing at her as she scrubs the floor, pushing soap from one corner to another, and her children are banging on the door, locked out of the house – out of her house, this is her house, filthy like always – and she squeezes her eyes shut, oh so tightly, and she yells into the linoleum, screaming like a madwoman.

Donnie laughs and so she shoves the rag into his mouth, shoves until he gags, shoves until he stops breathing.

And then she is one who is laughing, laughing until tears run down her face.

/ /

She paces the hallways until they tell her to stop and so she turns around and around in her room until she feels dizzy. She skirts the edges of the common area, too reserved to gossip with the drunks and the pill-poppers, but also too scared as well; scared that she is one of them now, that this place is a vision of the rest of her life – pastel walls and piss checks for years to come.

And she looks at herself in the mirror – brown eyes that are no longer uncommon blink slowly, taking in the ley lines running across her forehead; taking in this map of her mistakes, of a thousand tiny miseries, laid out against her skin... a living, breathing monument to failure...

Alison looks at herself until she wishes for blindness.

/ /

The second one is about Beth.

They sit side by side, having a conversation without speaking, and Alison wonders why she never asked if Beth was okay, wonders how all the warning signs slipped right by her gaze, wonders at what dark secrets the woman carried with her to those train tracks, to that kingdom of six feet under.

And Beth gives her a loaded gun, as if it were a gift, and Alison cradles this weapon close to her chest, as if it were special.

She doesn't remember Beth's smile being so damn broken – like fractured glass, delicately shattered – but the lips upturn, cutting into the cheek, and when Beth kisses her, slick and steady as the tide...

...oh how it hurts.

/ /

She thinks about Aynsley and cannot stop shaking, guilt rattling through her bones like a hurricane, and she thinks of the musical and cannot stop weeping, flashes of her wasted performance starting to seep back into her brain, and she thinks about her family – the children she couldn't have, the children Donnie is threatening to take away – and she thinks about this life... this ridiculous, terrible life that she is spinning madly within...

And Alison looks at herself in the mirror.

And there is nothing to see.

/ /

But all the other dreams are about herself – or versions of herself, duplicated ad infinitum, a million expressions worn by a million faces... happy to sad, sad to angry, angry to empty again...

And she hears the laughter.  
And she holds this gun.  
And she looks at herself – in the eyes of Sarah, of Cosima, of Beth, of these women, of these clones...

_Who am I anymore?_

/ /

And the nightmare is all that is left.

/ /

(end)

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my darling Alison... *clings to her*


End file.
